The wind scattered the ashes and took the noxious odor far from them. Lucian walked over to her and sat down so that their bodies were touching. “It is done.”
Jaxon heard his voice, soft and gentle as always, and when she looked up at him, his features were the same, beautifully masculine, rugged, perfect. Still, Jaxon felt his exhaustion, the hunger beating at him that he kept at bay with his strict discipline. It was there in his mind. She also found the reason for his delay in getting to the surface. The vampire had devised a trap, crude but effective. As Lucian had raced through the tunnels hollowed out by the vampire, a pack of rats had rushed behind him, attacking, biting, sent to slow him. As he fought them off, the tentacles shooting above ground had swarmed over and around him, pinning him in the earth long enough for the viper to inject a compound of poison into his system.
Jaxon gasped, her heart slamming hard at the explosion of pain she discovered in his memories. It was a lethal poison, a complex mix the vampire had manufactured that moved with speed throughout the nervous system, causing excruciating pain as it ate at the cells, gobbling them up as it replicated itself. It had taken Lucian a few minutes to slow the poison, analyze it, and manufacture the antibodies necessary to drive it from his system.
“I can’t believe you were able to do that,” she said, awed. “How can anyone do that? Drive the poison out of his own body?”
“It is not unusual for our people to do such things. Sometimes it is done by pushing the poison out through the pores. This was more like a battle—indeed, in the midst of a battle—because the poison was a combination of several very lethal compounds. Rather extraordinary for a vampire to concoct. I am sorry I had to disconnect, but you would have felt the pain, and that I could not allow.” His arm circled her slender shoulders. “Besides I knew you would handle things aboveground until I was able to reach you.”
“You monitored me even though I couldn’t tell what was happening to you,” she said with some annoyance. “That’s how you helped me, isn’t it? How come you know what I’m doing when we aren’t merged together? I ask just in case the information comes in handy someday—for instance, when I get tired of your arrogance and decide to have a flaming affair. Or better yet, when I want to make certain you aren’t running around on me.” She was running her hands over his body to assure herself he was fine.
His hand cupped her chin so that he could look into her enormous eyes, eyes that held a hint of the fire within her. “You seem disturbed, honey.” His voice was a drawling, teasing caress.
“Absolutely I am,” she vowed, but she had to look away from him or she would have burst out laughing.
Either that or kiss him. “You ‘allow’ me to be your partner, but you wrap me up in cotton wool as if I were a porcelain doll. I should know what’s happening to you all the time, just in case you have need of me.”
“I understand your nature, angel, probably better than you understand it, and I’m willing to provide you with everything you need to make you happy. But you have to understand, I will never allow your life to be placed in any real danger. If I cannot adequately protect you in a situation, you are not to be there. That is all there is to it. You are not to be there.” He said it softly, gently, like a lover. His voice made her heart somersault and set butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
She sighed and shook her head, knowing she was lost. He didn’t understand fairness, equality. He understood she was a woman.
His
woman. His nature demanded he protect her. To him, “compromise” meant she could be with him, even aid him, but only under specified conditions. Jaxon shook her head again before dropping it onto his arm. “I’m tired, Lucian. I’ve never been this tired before. How many hours before the sun rises and I can get some sleep?”
“You need to feed, my love. We both need to feed. To do the things we did requires tremendous energy. You do not have the stamina for such battles. You are very...” He trailed off when her head snapped up and she glared at him.
“If you say
small
or
little
or anything stupid like that, I’m going to show you that penchant for violence you say I have.”
His long lashes swept down for a moment, concealing the laughter in his eyes. He felt that was far more prudent than revealing it. “I think we should get out of here and find prey.”
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. “Did you have to use that word? You probably did it on purpose just to make me crazy. I don’t hunt
prey
. People are not
prey
.”
His immaculate white teeth gleamed at her. “I like stirring you up, honey. You have this one expression that does something to my insides.” He stood up, a rippling of muscle and power, holding out a hand to her. “Come on, we have a long way to go this night. And do not feel too much pity for ones such as these.” He waved his hand to encompass the ground where the three vampires had been slain. “This was the one who orchestrated the killings in the station house and went after your partner, Barry. These beings are without souls. They are wholly evil. I can feel your sorrow, my love, and I ache for you. I cannot bear it when you feel so sad.”
She slipped her hand into his. “I’m fine, Lucian. I really am. There’s just so much depravity in the world, so many sick people.”
He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. “Not here. Not where we are.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lucian returned to the underground cavern, entering silently. He had fed well, knowing Jaxon was in great need of sustenance. His first duty, his first
need
, was to provide for his lifemate. He had found several campers miles away from them and had drunk long and deep so that he could provide for Jaxon.
She was standing on a flat rock overlooking a pool. It was hot in the cave, and she had clothed herself in a long gossamer skirt that wrapped loosely around her slender figure, clinging here and there, giving him intriguing glimpses of her shapely legs when she moved. She wore a thin blouse knotted beneath her breasts, leaving her midriff bare. Little beads of sweat trickled down the valley between her breasts in invitation.
Lucian allowed his body to respond, hard and hot and needy. He glided across the cave, his shirt floating to the floor as he made his way to the rock and came up close behind her. Without touching her he bent to whisper close to her neck, “I can feel your hunger beating at me.” His voice was soft, seductive. His hands came down on her shoulders, moved lightly down her arms, traced the sweeping line of her back to her waist. Bare satin skin. He caressed the small of her back, the line of her hips beneath the gossamer skirt, moved his hands around to trace her buttocks—to find she wore nothing beneath the filmy material.
His breath caught in his throat, molten lava moving through his blood, spreading heat and fire to pool low in a hard, throbbing ache. She leaned into him, tilting her head back, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat, thrusting her breasts upward invitingly as she reached back to circle his neck with one arm.
“Smell my blood, angel, calling to you. I’m hot and hard, and I need you feeding.” He needed the feel of her mouth on him, the erotic sensation of her sharing the essence of his body, his life.
Lucian circled her body to cup her breasts, to feel the weight of them through the thin fabric of her blouse. Only the small knot kept them from spilling free into his palms. “I want you, my love, right now,” he whispered against the nape of her neck, one hand slipping down to follow the curve of her hip, to find the slit in the gossamer skirt so he could shape her leg, trace her thigh, move his hand to find the damp heat beckoning in the nest of tiny curls.